Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for November 25, 2021

Good morning™, everyone!

Mumbles: “The spinach salad you are!”

“Stupid deli man is a coward! I’ve got to do everything myself.”

“Jack of Spades? Dead? That’s just great!”

But he’s not dead? What’s going on?

Not dead. ✨

Wait, what? The cops just left him there? And the counter guy wasn’t even brought in for questioning?

Agree with all the above.

How the Sam Hill did Catchem let this one get away alive?

I smell setup…

It’s too much effort to decode Mumbles speech.

I guess the Jack brought some spare blood and maybe an extra organ or two. Very sensible.

It seems like the deli man did not know that something happened upstairs. Didn’t hear the gunshots! Didn’t hear the commotion! Didn’t see his guest being led away by the police! He sees nothing! He hears nothing! He knows nothing! Mumbles is right!

Shelley is fond of shadows

It would be way too outrageous to think that he was left behind so the only logical explanation is it’s Tracy pretending to be dear old Jack! He wears that ridiculous costume well!

So this is a trap, & now Mumbles gets caught, & Ace then sends Doubleup to find out what happened. He gets caught, & then Ace sends…..

Good morning™, presumed dead !

He calls Ace to report the missing Rose and a wounded “Spds” ?  The “cards” run like scalded cockroaches and MCU arrives to an empty lair ?

Tracy disguised himself as a “card” before in the 52 gang story. This HAS to be a setup. No way Sam would have left behind himself a corpse, much less a wounded man without calling the proper transports, and the deli man would have been brought in with Rose for questioning.

“Jacko spuds” don’t look so tough now.

I need an English-Mumbles translator!

The sign in panel 1 says the deli closes at 5:30 on weekdays and Sundays at 4:00. It’s still the same day and it’s probably a weekday, and Ace said it’s been “hours” since Jack checked in, so there’s been enough time for Rose to tell her story and for the MCU to get a warrant. It works. I conclude that this is a setup, but I don’t know why they bothered. Surely Rose told them where the Apparatus HQ is. Surely they’re not doing this to get the location of the HQ. Puzzling…

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone !

I find it less than credible that the Jack of Spades is still at the deli, and that it’s not taped off as a Crime Scene. If he wasn’t dead, he’d be in police custody and at the hospital. This one stretches things just a bit too far….

“Ladies and gentlemen, we now cross to our expert commentator Admiral Ackbar for his analyse of the situation before us. Admiral?”

How the heck did the police not arrest Jack and take him to the hospital? Sam knows perfectly well he shot a guy in a silly costume.

Wait a minute. That could be Tracy in that suit and Mumbles will take him right back to the hideout.

SO, WAIT. Sam shoots a baddie and LEAVES him. Didn’t MENTION this when he called in for a uniform team to escort the prisoner? No meat wagon, no reporters, nothing? Could this be a police agent set to infiltrate?

Good advice for goComics commenters, read the other comments first.

Happy Gobble Gobble Day, fellow MCU detectives!

Obviously either I’m confused about the timeline here, or, Mike Curtis has forgotten it. I was under the impression that it’s been a day, or, two since the “incident” in that apartment above the deli. The entry to the apartment should’ve been decorated with crime scene tape, with a a seal on the door, and the ME’s office having come to take what was thought to be a body away (presuming the paramedics/EMTs checked over the Jack first. But there isn’t even a uniform guarding the scene.

So Sam saw the deli guy lead Briar upstairs, so at the very least he should have been brought in for questioning. I guess he could have been released on bail.

“Th’ spinitchslad y’are!” Stress seems to clear up Mumbles’ pronunciation a bit, doesn’t it?

1-MUSHMOUTH: Lemee n. I gta luvltr for Suki. DELI MAN: Good luck with that.

2-MUSHMOUTH: Hmmm. Whtd tht meen? Problynuthn.

*3-…JACK! WHAHPPND??? Yuk. Yer allbluddy and yoosht yerpnts!

DT IN DISGUISE: Sukie got the drop and gutshot me. Oh the pain. And the smell. You’ll probably want to take me to where we’ve hidden all those millions we got when we found all that buried treasure.

MUSHMOUTH: Wat? Notadok?

DT: Uh. No. I’m ok. Just need some rest in what would likely be the safest location the Apparatus has.

MUSHMOUTH: Mks cnz. But ugota rid inna trnk. U stnk.

DT: Hmmmm. OK but lemme turn on my Wrist Radio’s Tracking Mode first.

MUSHMOUTH: Huh?

DT: Oh. Trnon my ristradeo trkingmod furst. MUSHMOUTH: Oh. O K.

I see the deli guy is still running the shop. The police told him it was in his best interest to cooperate.

Interesting….no key needed….Briar Rose’s apartment was still open. Guy who is wearing the Ninja outfit must be an undercover cop. Blood indicating he was wounded probably came from a lab.

Fellow on the floor must be groggy due to loss of blood. Plus he has to be convincing to Mumbles. Now is Mumbles going to contact a mob doctor or put the guy out of his misery?

Hppythnkgivin eerybdy. Mumblesowt

Look, when you have a character like Mumbles you CANNOT make him say things like “the Spinach salad you are,” because I WILL think I misread it.

If this ISN’T an undercover cop, this is the STUPIDEST Dick Tracy I have ever seen. No CSI’s No Police Swarming the place. No coroner. A wounded but STILL alive suspect on the floor. PLEASE let this be an undercover cop!

Paint me like one of your French girls

Since we cannot imagine Sam Catchem’s clean-up after the shootout to be so bizarrely botched, the most likely conclusion is that the person in the “Jack of Spades” bodysuit is not in fact Jack. The cops have laid a trap, so it seems. Could it be Tracy himself waiting to “greet” Mumbles? Shootout #2 coming up? That upper room is not a safe house in any sense!

It does seem like Mike served up a turkey of a strip for Thanksgiving Day. Happy holiday, everyone!

Mumbles is a well dressed sort.

Is it me, or hasn’t Mumbles not picked up on either the guy’s body language or what he was trying to tell him?

“What’d he say?”

Mumblespeak translator: He said, “The spinach salad you are!”

“What’d he say?”

Mumblespeak translator: He said, “Stupid deli man is a coward!”

“What’d he say?”

Mumblesapeak translator: He said, “I’ve got to do everything myself.”

“What’d he say?”

Mumblespeak translator: He said, “Jack of Spades? Dead? That’s just great!”